Questions and Answers
by beege
Summary: The birth of Keitaro and Naru’s first child prompts Kanako to embark on a journey into her own past.


Questions and Answers

Urashima Kanako regarded the scene before her with mixture of joy and envy. She felt that having mixed feelings was excusable, under the circumstances. Doubtless most of the other people in the room felt the same way. Shinobu was crying, though Kanako suspected the tears were an expression of happiness rather than sadness. Su seemed delighted and though Kitsune was teasing Naru mercilessly she couldn't conceal her pleasure. Even Motoko and Haruka were smiling, while Naru and Keitaro both seemed deliriously happy, and why not?

After all, the birth of their first child was a special occasion.

* * *

That evening found Kanako at home in her own apartment, pondering the day's events over a glass of wine. She had a niece. Family. True, she'd had that since the day the Urashima family had taken her in, but this was different somehow. Little Kimiko was the first member of the _next _generation of Urashimas. Kanako would get to see her grow up and, perhaps more importantly, Kimiko would grow up with Kanako being part of her life from the beginning. She couldn't help wondering what Kimiko would be like as she got older. More to the point, she couldn't help but wonder what kind of relationship Kimiko would have with her aunt – Kanako. Naru had asked her to be Kimiko's godmother. The surge of joy she'd felt after Naru asked her had surprised Kanako. For a moment she hadn't recognised the feeling. It had been a bit like the way she'd felt as a child when her brother had smiled at her, an all encompassing warmth that suffused her with happiness and goodwill.

A sense of belonging was a powerful source of happiness.

Kanako had accepted with more enthusiasm than she usually showed for anything – to the point, she believed, that Naru had been somewhat unnerved – and thanked her sister in law profusely. Thinking back to how Naru had looked at the hospital as she'd held her daughter Kanako decided that Naru was going to be a good mother. It went without saying that Keitaro would be a good father.

Unbidden, the thought entered Kanako's mind:

_What was my mother like?_

* * *

For a while she was able to ignore it. She blamed it on the wine, the lateness of the hour and the emotionally charged day she'd had. She buried it under thoughts about her newborn niece, to whom everything was a source of endless wonder and fascination – particularly the decoration on the clothes her aunt liked to wear. But this technique backfired. Thoughts about Kimiko were what had led Kanako to wonder about her mother in the first place. Questions about her mother began to prey on her mind. Eventually Kanako decided that the only way to have peace from them would be to answer them. The difficulty lay in doing so without alerting her family. She needed to find out what adoption agency they'd used without letting them know what she was doing.

After some thought Kanako hit upon the idea of asking Haruka.

* * *

"You want me to what?" Haruka asked incredulously. Kanako would have smiled if she hadn't been nervous. Her aunt's unflappability was something of a family legend but she'd suspected that her request would catch Haruka by surprise.

"I want you to tell me the name of the agency that arranged my adoption," she repeated. Haruka was silent for several seconds before answering.

"Why do you want to know?" she asked carefully, setting down the plate she'd been wiping. Kanako rested her hands on the counter of Haruka's restaurant and looked her aunt in the eye.

"Why do you think?" she asked softly. Haruka took a deep breath before answering.

"Is this something to do with Keitaro and Naru's baby?" she asked. Kanako just managed to keep her expression neutral, but her lack of response was a clue in itself for Haruka.

"I see. I think it's written down somewhere. I'll check. Later," she added, seeing Kanako's expectant look. "I'm not sure where it is exactly."

"Thank you."

Haruka simply nodded her head in reply and after a moment Kanako got up and left.

* * *

Kanako had had a feeling Haruka would help her, if she could. Her aunt had always believed in allowing others to chart their own course. Now, as she stood in the lobby of the offices Haruka had directed her to, Kanako wondered if the doubt she'd sensed in her aunt had been justified. She was beginning to feel a creeping sense of guilt in her actions, almost as though she was betraying the people who'd raised her.

_Well it's too late to back out now._

Getting the information turned out to be surprisingly easy. The adoption agency had required proof of her identity – her driver's licence had sufficed – and once they had that they'd been positively helpful. Kanako had expected a certain amount of red tape, or a privacy clause, or something, but that had not been the case.

The agency had a policy of not withholding information from adopted children if their biological parents were untraceable or deceased.

* * *

Kanako stared at the grave with an inexplicable feeling of loss. The woman buried there had been a single mother who'd died not long after she'd given her daughter up for adoption. Cause of death had been a drunk driver who hadn't fixed his car's headlights.

_It is not as though I knew this person_, she told herself, fighting the sense that the grief she felt for the stranger buried there was a betrayal of the family that had raised her and loved her.

_She brought me into this world, but then she cast me out into it. I'll never even know why._

With a flash of insight Kanako recognised that her last thought somehow contained the key to her sorrow.

_I wasn't searching for a mother at all_, she realised. _I assumed that was why I was doing this, even though I already have a mother, which is why I felt guilty._

_But I didn't stop to examine my own motivations._

_I didn't want a mother._

_I wanted answers._

_And now I know I'll never have them_, Kanako thought as she looked at the grave. She struggled with that thought for a moment before her thoughts circled back to the place in her mind that had set her on the journey into her past.

_Keiko. She will never have questions like this when she grows up. And I'll be a part of that. I'll be there in her life, just like her parents. I'll be an answer to her instead of a question._

Kanako nodded herself and turned away from the grave walking from it with her customary poised strides.

She didn't look back.

* * *

Author's Notes

When I sat down to write 'Relative Insanity' I got about a hundred words in before I looked at what I'd written and realised that my writing was too serious for a shortshortfic that was basically the setup for a one liner. Then it occurred to me that the idea of Kanako searching for her birth mother was actually a good premise for a serious story – and a good opportunity to write a short character study. The original beginning of 'Relative Insanity' became the first paragraph of this story.

I just wish I'd been able to think of a better title.


End file.
